RS

MEMBER DIARY

US Airport Security

In response to recent events aboard our airlines — the American people are facing more scrutiny and delays in our nations airports. Just look back to 2001 when Richard Reid tried to blow up a jumbo jet with explosives in his shoes. Now all of us have to take off our shoes and have them x-rayed prior to boarding a plane.

Was this an appropriate action? I’ll leave that for you to decide. I am more concerned with the Department of Homeland Security’s reactionary response. Will we be strip searched and restrained in our seats when flying from now on? Why is the Administration looking at everything from closing restrooms on the last hour of an international flight to full-body scanners. Why do they refuses to consider the proven method of profiling?

In 2006 Jeff Jacoby, a columnist for the Boston Globe wrote an article entitled, “What Israeli Security Could Teach Us.” He writes “…the Israelis check for bombs and weapons too, but always with the understanding that things don’t hijack planes, terrorists do — and the best way to detect terrorists is to focus on intercepting not bad things, but bad people… Unlike in US airports, where passengers go through security after checking in for their flights and submitting their luggage, security at Ben Gurion (Israel’s International Airport) comes first. Only when the profiler is satisfied that a passenger poses no risk is he or she allowed to proceed to the check-in counter. By that point, there is no need to make him remove his shoes, or to confiscate his bottle of water.”

Everyone is talking about Mr. Abdulmutallab’s attempt to detonate a bomb, sewn into his underwear, on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day. But why aren’t we focusing on the facts? Mr. Abdulmutallab boarded Northwest 253 in Amsterdam. He paid cash for a one-way ticket, he had no luggage, he is on a terrorist watch list and he was able to do all of this without a passport!

Mr. Abdulmutallab bragged to FBI agents that there are more like him plotting to launch attacks on the West, and I believe him. We must insist passengers boarding international connecting flights to the US, be re-screened regardless of security screening they may have previously passed through in other countries. And domestically, we can no longer rely a federal policy that will randomly pat down old women and children while ignoring the obvious threats.

In this post 9/11 world we, the American people, must reject the need to be politically correct when it comes to the security of our Nation. The Department of Homeland Security must remember which homeland they are securing and focus on proven methods that will improve security for Americans at home and abroad.

It is time for Americans to wake up to the fact that we are at war with Al Qaeda, and other Islamic terrorist groups. Al Qaeda is not a county. There are no uniforms. They are a group of Islamic extremists who want to destroy and or convert us to Islam in order to place us all under Sharia Law.

We can no longer accept the government’s typical response: “The system worked”, while ignoring the true threat under the guise of political correctness and subjecting millions to ineffective reactionary response, and worse of all, granting US Citizenship to those terrorist via Miranda Rights.

It’s time to focus on effective security measures. I believe that it is possible to make these changes quickly, and with minimal cost to the taxpayer, but failure to act will cost us much more than treasure. It will cost us the American way of life.